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Touting medical benefits of cannabis, MDMA, iboga and magic mushrooms

Cannabis for cancer, MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin for depression.

Theories once confined to fringe pockets of science are now the focus of a paradigm shift that medical professionals are paying infinitely more attention to.

Running Nov. 4 and 5 at the University of B.C., the seventh annual Spirit Plant Medicine Conference is a reflection of that growing trend. Doctors, members of academia, Indigenous healers and scientists will convene at UBC to discuss that change in science and spirituality.

“The messaging here is that these plants are sacred,” said conference co-organizer Celina Archambault. “We’ve lost touch and education around this, and it isn’t going to come from government. I truly believe that these are the fastest ways that we can fix some global problems.”

A big part of the festival’s push is to better understand entheogens. Greek for “generating the divine from within,” entheogens and the